Sinister: Been to circus lately?

Anders anders at xxx.com
Wed Apr 2 18:16:07 BST 2003 

Dear Sinister

Have any of you been to circus lately.

I guess not. But I have.
About a week ago my sister invited me, she's a journalist you see, and she got some tickets for free.
Well, she'll have to write about it, though.
The circus was yesterday, and I’m still amazed.

Anyway, I was invited and the only thing I had to do was to be there, and maybe, if she couldn't find another child, she'd ask me some questions and maybe take some photos.
She's journalist for a local newspaper you see, "Groruddalen Budstikke", and the circus has got nothing to do with Groruddalen at all. But I have.
So if she couldn't find a little boy or girl from Groruddalen, she'd interview me. 
She didn’t find any of those, she didn't even try.
But she didn't interview me, I just said that as long as I'm in the newspaper I'll say anything, you just make up something. Whatever you like. She said it was OK.
Still, I'm wondering about what my reactions to the circus will be...

We took some pictures of me when I was standing inside The Ring, together with the man in charge. It was great fun. And tomorrow I’ll be able to read about it in the paper, so will just about 500 000 others.
(Maybe it’s more like 200 000, but anyway, it’s still more people than I will ever know.)
 
I guess all of you will read “Groruddalen budstikke”, and because of that I will tell you what I really felt about it all. I don’t want you to get a wrong impression of me, cause who knows what my sister will make up


- Imagine yourself. You’re three years old and standing on a grass-grown field.  Then imagine the circus tent behind you, all the trucks with animals from all over the world, the strange people and last but not least: the big bucket of popcorn in your arms (it is almost as tall as you are!). You think about all the places where these trucks and people have been, what have they seen there? 
Maybe a dragon? 
You also have a lollipop in you mouth, and for a second you just focus on the wonderful taste. Cause you’re still able too stay focused on such a little and unimportant thing. You realise that popcorn’s better than lollipops and you put a handful of it in your mouth. Delicious!
You’re dreaming about going all those places where these vehicles have been, but on the other hand you wouldn’t be anywhere else than right where you are now. Holding your dad’s hand.
There’s a clown coming over. “What is that?” you’re thinking. 
Is it an animal? A wild African animal from the jungle? Whatever it is it looks scary.
His white face reminds you of death, dead people. The clown is as pale as death.
You scream. The clown gets scared, and you realise that you’re not the one that should be afraid, cause you’ve got your dad standing by your side, but you can’t see his dad...
You ask him if he’s some kind of an animal, he says that he’s not, he says that he’s just a clown and that he didn’t intend to scare you, he’s really sorry.
“You’re such a twee child,» he says (and you are) 
You feel pity for him. He looks stupid and has to go around looking stupid without holding his dad’s hand, while everyone else does. Poor clown.
You can smell foreign countries and cultures. How does people look on the other side of the earth, what do they smell? Maybe they smell like this vehicle. 
You start walking toward one of them.
“ Where are you going? We’ll miss the circus!”
Miss the show, the circus!? You hurry back.
You don’t know what you will see, what you will feel and smell, but you know it’ll be great fun.
You’re so excited.

Can you feel it? Maybe it wasn’t like this, but can you feel the feeling you had the first time you ever went to a circus? 
I felt that way before I went into the tent yesterday.
(I wasn’t afraid of the clowns, though. It’s true! And I was holding my sister’s hand. No I wasn't afraid of the clowns!)
I hadn’t been to circus for ages and couldn’t even remember the last time. But when I got inside I remembered it all. Funny thing, when you go inside the tent, you feel like you leave this planet and enter a totally different reality. Magic.

The show was better then I could imagine. It was funny, impressing and thrilling.
The best part was Mr. Dalmantiner and his amazing dogs and wee horses. They did the most unbelievable things. You’ll have to see it to understand how incredible it was. For a wee while I thought the dogs were some programmed electronic robots. I thought that whoever programmed them is really clever. But whoever taught the dogs to do these tricks is a genius.

The tweest one in the circus was the elephant girl. She was the daughter of one of the elephant men, and was about one year old. The elephant lifted her in his trunk.
She was happy, wee and tubby.

The elephants danced on small boxes.

The clowns were disappointing. They tried to be funny, but couldn’t speak a word of Norwegian. (They were Spanish) So when they tried it was like this:
“AAAAHHHHHHHEEEEEEHHHHHRRRRRRRR”
(OK. They were scary. I was afraid.)
Nobody understood it. And the “story” wasn’t funny either. I expected a laugh, but didn’t get one.

But the circus was great. (Sirkus Arnardo) and you should check it out. Or you could visit another circus next time one of them comes to your town. I’m sure you’ll love it.

Popcorn & Lollipops to everyone!
Anders





PS I wish there was some kind of correction program that would correct my mispsellings and grammatical mistakes

Blame it on the fact that I’m a teenager, a Norwegian teenager


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